Many modern fleet vehicles carry highly specialized computers required for operating the vehicles in the form of one or more electronic control units (ECUs) disposed in one or more vehicle subsystems such as, for example, radar subsystems, anti-lock brake subsystems (ABS), camera subsystems, vehicle dashboard subsystems, automatic cruise control (ACC) subsystems, tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS), and the like. The vehicles of this type also typically carry and use highly specialized communication systems for communicating via satellite, cellular links, or the like with associated wireless or wired hosts such as centralized servers located at a remote home base, for example.
It is to be appreciated that the ECUs each comprise not only hardware components but also software or, more specifically, software components. The software components may include one or more of each of active, passive, or other components. Active software components may include executable code segments, for example, and passive software components may include parameters, databases or other collections of data or the like used by the active software components, for example. Other software components may include software update version data relating to the software version levels of the active or passive components or relating to hardware and/or firmware installed in each of the ECUs.
Over the life of the vehicles the software components may need updates in order to ensure compatibility of the various subsystems of the vehicle with evolving or changing operating conditions such as vehicle age, to adapt the vehicle for service in a range of environments or for other reasons. Also, certain parameters may be changed as a matter of personal or corporate preference or policy such as, for example, parameters in tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS), following distance determination systems, panic brake monitoring system, or the like.
Current methods for implementing the updating of software components in motor vehicles generally include wired or wireless update techniques. Wired updates typically require a physical visit of the vehicle to a service center whereat selected one or more software updates may be downloaded by an authorized trained technician into a hub controller operatively coupled with one or more subsystems or downloaded directly into a selected subsystem from a host computer, such as a laptop or specialized update computer console device. This procedure is costly and adds delay to the software update roll out across a fleet of vehicles.
Wireless updates utilize one or more wireless transceivers of a hub controller coupled with the vehicle subsystems or of the vehicle subsystems to communicate selected software update modules from a remote host server to the hub controller or subsystem directly using one or more wireless network technologies, such as cellular networks, satellite communications, WiFi networks, or the like.
However, the timing of the wireless updates has the potential of interfering with normal operation of the target vehicle. It is highly desirable to perform software update operations in some subsystems such as ABS subsystems, for example, while the vehicle is not in operation wherein a loss of that function during the software update could result in adverse vehicle handling consequences. Also, it is undesirable to suspend vehicles from service whenever a wireless update becomes available.
In addition, with regard to vehicle subsystems, many modern fleet vehicles use Diesel Particulate Filters (“DPFs”) to filter and collect particulate matter from the exhaust gases of diesel engines to prevent the particulate matter from exiting the tailpipe. After a period of operation, and prior to clogging, the DPF filter needs to be replaced or removed for cleaning the collected particulate matter. However, since replacement and removing for cleaning is costly and not practical, many filters are cleaned on-board using a process known as “regeneration.” DPF regeneration is a process where temperatures of the exhaust gases are made high enough to combust the carbon particulates within the filter. Typically, the DPFs are regenerated in fleet vehicles either by: 1) driving constantly at a higher speed until the regeneration is complete; or 2) using a special protocol actively raising the exhaust gas temperature to facilitate regeneration while the vehicle is parked or otherwise immobilized until the regeneration protocol is complete usually taking about twenty (20) minutes. The DPF regeneration process is typically performed often in commercial vehicles in order to maintain proper operation of the vehicle.
It would be further desirable, therefore, to provide a detailed fleet software maintenance system that provides an overall implementation designed to focus on safety and efficiency, and to provide a software server architecture and corresponding web applications providing an interface for efficient software maintenance operation.